Airport News
Below are news items relating to specific airports
Manchester City chief slams Heathrow’s ‘desperate’ attempt to woo Manchester business leaders
Heathrow has been working hard to try to get support for its 3rd runway from Chambers of Commerce across the country. It has been offering the Chambers in the north west around £3,000 to fund events to pitch their runway case. They want the regions to believe they risk losing their link to Heathrow if there is no new runway. Manchester Chamber of Commerce declined the offer, and Manchester Council leader Sir Richard Leese described Heathrow’s approach as ‘desperate’. He said: “I don’t think we should be supporting the Heathrow expansion plan. I think increasingly, evidence says that we don’t need the hub airport and what we ought to do is make better use of the network airports - including Manchester Airport.... What you see is both Heathrow and Gatwick increasingly losing the argument and getting increasingly desperate - as shown in this case. .... Why do our members want to traipse down to London when they can use the airport round the corner?” 25 Chambers have backed Heathrow, but Sir Richard Leese says of them they are getting an unbalanced view from Heathrow. "Perhaps I ought to write to London Chamber of Commerce to set up a meeting for Manchester Airport.”
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Noise protesters block part of Frankfurt airport for about an hour
Opponents of the noise misery inflicted on them by Frankfurt airport's 4th runway, there has been a fresh protest at the airport. There have been regular large protests at the airport on most Monday evenings, ever since the opening of the 4th runway on 21.10.2011. On Saturday there was a different sort of protest, when people started off in a similar protest to the Monday evenings, but they then blocked the road access to the departures area for around an hour. That caused considerable disruption to the airport, as departures had to be closed. This is the first protest blocking a road. Before the runway was opened, citizens were barely consulted about the flight paths. Only their local authorities were given any information, and all were assured there would be hardly any more noise. The reality was sharply different, and flight paths were changed to accommodate the new runway, meaning thousands are affected by noise, not only on the direct approach path. One protester commented that as the airport aggravates them for 18 hours per day, they were entitled to aggravate the airport for one hour.
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Standing room only at huge Gatwick protest meeting – definite “NO” to new flight paths or 2nd runway
GACC (Gatwick Area Conservation Campaign) organised a protest meeting on 22nd November in north Crawley. It was standing room only, with a huge gynmasium with space for up to 1,000 packed. People had come from areas near Gatwick, and up to 25 miles away - to express their intense opposition both to the flight path changes that Gatwick has recently inflicted on them, and to plans for a 2nd runway. The atmosphere at the meeting was up-beat, positive, angry and determined that Gatwick will not ruin their areas and their homes, or reduce their quality of life. Five MPs addressed the meeting (Nicholas Soames, Crispin Blunt, Henry Smith, Charles Hendry and Paul Beresford) with message of support read out from Francis Maude and Sir John Stanley, neither of whom could attend. The meeting was chaired by Helyn Clack (Surrey County Council), and addressed by the Mayor of Crawley, Brenda Smith. Asked by GACC whether people backed a new runway, or backed new flight paths, the response was a loud, unanimous "NO". The meeting ended with cheerful singing of a new song - "What Shall We Do With Gatwick Airport?" (to the tune of the similar "Drunken Sailor."
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Gatwick’s main airline, easyJet, questions Gatwick case for 2nd runway and does not want to pay higher landing charges
Carolyn McCall, CEO of EasyJet, the largest airline at Gatwick, has said passengers want expansion at Heathrow, not at Gatwick. Ms McCall said easyJet is "quite concerned” at the prospect that Gatwick's landing charges would rise to pay for a 2nd runway. They are having confidential talks with the airports on future charges. EasyJet makes on average £8 profit per seat. If Gatwick’s charges doubled from the current £9 to an average of £15 to £18 (or even up to £23) as predicted by the Airports Commission, this would hit EasyJet's economics. Ms McCAll said: “This whole issue of capacity should be about where the demand is. Airlines have to want to go into that airport, and the congestion we have is predominantly around the Heathrow hub. Passengers need to really value what this infrastructure brings, and if they don’t see any benefit it’s going to struggle.” A new runway risked emulating unpopular toll roads. “It will be years and years before [passengers] see any positive effect.” As one of the UK's largest and fastest growing airlines, EasyJet's opinion will need to be given careful consideration by the Commission.
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NATS proposes more low flying Stansted planes over north Essex & SSE will keep fighting changes to departure routes
Stop Stansted Expansion (SSE) will keep fighting planned changes to the airport’s departure flight paths. NATS first proposed changes to Stansted flight paths in June, but SSE say there must be clear and compelling benefits for local residents before any shift is implemented. NATS plans to route about 50 more outbound planes per day along a flightpath towards Clacton to avoid congestion in the skies over London. NATS received over 400 responses to its recent airspace consultation; about 82% objected to the proposed changes. NATS has now published its Feedback Report claiming that “the package of net operational and environmental benefits presents a compelling case for change”. The changes help NATS meet its targets for flight efficiency, which give more priority to cutting fuel burn and CO2 emissions than cutting noise for those overflown. The planes are unlikely to reach 7,000ft until around Kelvedon, and between 4,000 and 7,000 feet, there has to be a trade-off between cutting noise and cutting fuel burn. Hence consultation. NATS has submitted its Airspace Change Proposal to the CAA and if approved the change would come into effect in December 2015.
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New flight paths revealed in Airports Commission documents – a noise double whammy for Horsham
The Airports Commission has put out various documents in its consultation (main consultation document, main Gatwick document, other noise documents) on the issue of noise. GACC (Gatwick Area Conservation Campaign) has unearthed a plan showing some possible new flight paths if a 2nd runway was built. The Commission emphasise that the map is only illustrative and does not represent where the routes might actually be. That would only be revealed after the new runway had been given the go-ahead. There is therefore no clear detail on flight paths, with no certainty of any sort for those who fear being overflown in future. This uncertainty generates very real concern and anger. The map indicates a massive increase in noise from take-offs to the west and south-west of Gatwick, over Warnham, north Horsham with perhaps a plane per minute between the two, relatively close, flight paths. Gatwick with two runways is planned to handle 560,000 air traffic movements a year, compared to 250,000 a year now. The impact of these flights would be profound, over an extensive area.
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Launch of SHE – Stop Heathrow Expansion – fighting to save much-loved village of Harmondsworth
More than 80 people attended the inaugural Stop Heathrow Expansion (SHE) meeting to bring together the opposition locally in the Harmondsworth area against Heathrow's plans to destroy their villages. Politicians, campaigners and members of the public came together for the launch of the new action group against a north-west 3rd runway, in the beautiful and historic St Mary's Church in Harmondsworth's High Street. Local MP, John McDonnell called on political parties to 'come clean' about their positions regarding the airport's expansion before the general election in 2015. He also urged those affected by the proposals to 'mobilise' and demonstrate 'people power'. He said: "The one thing we can rely on is our own power – people power – because that's how we won it last time." The meeting heard that a 3rd runway would mean an extra 260,000 Heathrow flights per year as well as around 750 homes being destroyed, and hundreds more made almost uninhabitable - but with minimal compensation. SHE is not opposed to Heathrow as it is, just to its expansion. The meeting ended with heart-felt singing of the No 3rd runway song, with the chorus: "This is our home, and we will stay; No Third Runway."
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Flights over Kent & Sussex countryside set to double if Gatwick builds 2nd runway
The Airports Commission consultation documents show that flights from Gatwick over the countryside and towns in most directions around the airport would more than double the airport was permitted a 2nd runway. The Commission's assessments, and various scenarios for forecasts, show a runway at Gatwick would be cheaper and perhaps simpler than one at Heathrow, but provide less economic benefit. The Chairman of the High Weald Councils' Aviation Action Group, Richard Streatfield said: "I don't think this report is worrying because it shows the benefits of a 2nd runway at Gatwick would be half that of Heathrow." He warned people living below the flight paths would face an "environmental calamity" if there was a new runway, with up to 560,000 aircraft movements per year, compared to 250,0000 now. Dominic Nevill, spokesman for the Crowborough based pressure group, East Sussex Communities for Control of Air Noise (ESCCAN), urged people to make their views on the report known, as the 2nd runway would be a disaster not only for their area, but far more widely.
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Heathrow adverts on the Underground subvertised
It was just too tempting for someone to resist. The Underground is plastered with adverts from Heathrow airport, promoting their new runway. And promoting the idea that their runway is of vital importance to not only the travellers who fly, using their airport, but the whole UK economy. And not just now - one ad proclaims that a small child needs a new Heathrow runway for her future welfare. And now many posters have been subvertised. The exaggerated claims of benefits from Heathrow have been substituted by more realistic text, illustrating that the carbon emissions from an expanded Heathrow would be more than any other carbon source in the UK. Larger even than the emissions of many more moderate countries, less addicted than we are to hypermobility. The advert with the small girl, which can be seen on a huge number of Tube trains, is still being investigated (for the past 2 months or so) by the Advertising Standards Authority, which is assessing the credibilty of the advert's claims.
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Flybe restores Newcastle Airport’s direct flights to Stansted
Passengers will be able to fly direct between Stansted and Newcastle, with Flybe, for the first time in 4 years after the airline announced twice daily flights. They will start at the end of March 2015. The North East has been without a service to Stansted for almost four years, since easyJet stopped flying it in 2011. There are claims about the importance of flights to London, for the region's connectivity. A link to Stansted will make access easier for people from the North East to London, but also to the area around Stansted, parts of Norfolk, Hertfordshire, Suffolk, Essex and Cambridgeshire. Stansted's MD Andrew Harrison said this will help business but also be "very popular additions to the route network for leisure connections.” ie. boost holiday flights from Stansted. But one more reason why extra runway slots are not needed at Gatwick or Heathrow, instead sensibly using space runway capacity at Stansted. There are already direct flights by BA between Newcastle and Heathrow, and by EasyJet between Newcastle and Gatwick. Also flights to Schiphol, Brussels and Paris. Newcastle destination map.